LAYYAH, Oct 20: A couple has been living in hiding for the last three weeks after some clerics issued a decree or fatwa declaring their marriage dissolved and their reunion un-Islamic and punishable.

Khadim Husain, of Basti Chah Shahwala, has filed a harassment petition with the district and sessions judge seeking action against his relatives and local clerics, who, according to him, fanned hatred against him and his wife, Kalsoom Bibi, forcing them to live in hiding.

According to the petition, Khadim had filed a jactitation case in a local family court on March 12 against his wife who was residing with her parents.

In return, Kalsoom Bibi also filed a suit of maintenance against her husband on July 16 in the family court. The elders of the family intervened and arranged reconciliation between the estranged couple. Khadim and Kalsoom both withdrew their cases from the family court on Sept 25 and started living together happily.

But their joy was ephemeral.

Within days, the relatives of the couple held a village jury (panchayat) which declared their reunion illegal and un-Islamic.

The relatives also got a religious decree from Karachi-based Mufti Muhammad Waseem and Mufti Ghulam Murtaza Mazhari, both of Madrassa Faizan-i-Shariat, declaring the reunion of the couple un-Islamic.

Khadim says that their relatives Muhammad Ismail and Saifullah distributed the copies of the fatwa in the area and organised a congregation in which local cleric Qari Muhammad Qasim announced that as the marriage of the couple stood dissolved, their living together amounted to ‘hadd’, or stoning the couple to death under the Sharia laws.

Khadim told Dawn from some undisclosed location that he had tried to convince the cleric that the court had allowed them to live together but in vain.

“The judicial system of Pakistan is not Islamic, so the decree is supreme,” Qari Qasim told Dawn.

“I heard announcements on the public address system that people should not maintain any social contacts or relations with Khadim and Kalsoom because their living together is against Islamic laws,” said Muhammad Mushtaq of the area. Another resident Ghulam Qasim also said the same thing.

The court will take up the petition on October 28.